


Apo Mekhanes Theos

by spacego



Category: Alexander (2004)
Genre: Alternate Reality, De-aging, Gen, Kid Fic, Playing fast and loose with mythology, and physics as well - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-10 13:36:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7847146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacego/pseuds/spacego
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, The Gods are Not Mechanics. </p><p>The gods giveth, the gods taketh away.<br/>Now giveth back they hath, though Alexander is not so sure he can endureth.<br/>A tragi-paro-comedy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. With gifts like these...

_I would not give him up for burial-_  
_In case my friend should rise at my plaint_  
_Seven days and seven nights,_  
_Until a worm fell out of his nose._

  
Days and nights had ceased to exist for him; merely a long string of grief heaped upon grief. He only vaguely remembered chasing people out of the room, with orders, barbs and accusations, until they finally stopped coming. That is, until the embalmers came and spoke directly to the King's sense of sanitation and love of all things beautiful.

Most of everyone, who was anyone, had crowded in the hallways but they all scattered to the wind when the door opened violently, finally, after so many days. Some threw themselves against walls to avoid being run down by a wild-eyed King. Some lunged for the nearest potted plant for a good heave-ho as several days worth of odious stench, of the unwashed and inebriated, of the once-very-ill and now-quite-dead, rolled out of the doors in waves.

The king himself would prefer to have scrubbed himself clean like a fishwife would scrub a whaler's kitchen floor. But truth be told, he barely had any idea where he dunked himself for his bath or what his servants did to him. His mind was elsewhere, conjuring up things; they all said he had good imagination. The embalmers would be offering prayers right now, he imagined, putting out their foreign tools that had fascinated Hephaistion endlessly, and laying out jars and urns like they were potters in that agora that Hephaistion had loved so much.

Alexander might've dozed off in the warm fragrant water. He remembered something about drawing out the brain through the nose. All sorts of things could happen. Fear of them doing damage to his beloved's beautiful face was enough to send him hurtling out of his bath, barely remembering to dress himself.

Running barefoot across the short distance from his rooms to Hephaistion's, he remembered that still needed to talk to the pyre builders, the sarcophagus maker, the mausoleum draughtsman. He still needed clothes to be made for Hephaistion's lying in state, funerary jewelry, and a death mask besides. He had to find time to petition the oracles, to ensure Hephaistion's place in the Elysian Fields.

He saw a harried maid run past him with an armful of linens and remembered that he hadn't yet signed the mourning orders. He wondered if a whole lifetime would be a long enough period. Above all, he needed to find someone who could tell him how a person could ever survive such a crushing grief. Perhaps if he assigned more tasks to himself, he could distract himself from his loss.

Cursorily, he realized that the crowd in the hallway had thinned somewhat and that the remaining people were either in the midst of fleeing at the sight of him or standing around all noisy and jittery like a bunch of untuned kitharas.

From the corner of his eyes he saw the Princess Drypetis being fanned and spoken to quite urgently by her handmaidens, in the corner of the Grand Vizier's antechambers that she had somehow commandeered. Somehow, in the meantime, she had grown a spine and refused anyone to dictate what she should do. No more skulking around the women's wing waiting for news.

The bedroom itself, he noted equally absently, benefited greatly from being aired out and doused in incense smoke to within an inch of its life. There's also the cloying aftertaste of the sharp purification fragrances. It weighed heavily at the back of his throat, plugging his nose.

In a far corner, the group of embalmers were being revived with an assortment of smelling salts; they looked uniformly deathly pale for some odd reason.

A young boy, whom he recognized to be one of Hephaistion's latest pet projects, was blabbering at him very fast. The boy could be the best orator the world had ever seen and Alexander wouldn't be able to understand it anyway. Out of habit, the King tuned the boy out.

Alexander knew he had given orders to the embalmers to work in this room, to not move the body anywhere, even though there were places in the sprawling palace of Ecbatana more suitable to such a solemn and gruesome task.

He remembered, in a vague sense, leaving the room only when he was content with their repeated assurance that the body of his beloved would stay where it was.

But now, surrounded by broken pottery and sundry pointy objects gleaming in the sun, dust motes dancing in shafts of light, was an empty bed.

 

*****

 

Many centuries later, they would claim that you could still hear the King's heartrending wails in hailstorm winds and mountain gales.

 

*****

 

"Oh, shut your moaning already!"

A boy who also appeared to be an alcoholic, bleary eyed, flushed, and stinking of fermented grapes, came into his line of vision. A short boy who could be easily missed as he didn't seem to even reach Alexander's knee when standing toe to toe. The boy was however, standing on the bed, listing here and there like he was standing on a barge over a river.

Dumbfounded, Alexander opened and closed his mouth several times, brain turning quickly to find an appropriate question to ask. He settled with, "What did you say?" Just because he wasn't so sure he was hearing something in reality and not his overly-stressed mind.

"The boy said, 'shut yer gob'," came the rejoinder, a rough papery voice that slurred badly. Suddenly there's an old man leaning against the boy's aide, blinking blearily at him, smelling like burnt herbs and the bottom of a wine barrel. There's also a strong underlying scent of goat.

A pair of swords came into view, sharp points angled towards the boy and the old satyr who appeared entirely amused. The boy hiccupped again and the old satyr belched. Both laughed at some unknown personal joke for a good minute, before turning their attention back to the bereft King.

Several more swords came into view and Alexander didn't have to look to know that they belonged to his generals. Good friends all, but not the one that mattered.

He felt another wave of sadness rising up on the edges of his thought.

"You are maudlin, sure! But even then, not drunk! Come young King, drink drink!"

The old satyr nudged at the boy and the boy rolled his wine-clouded eyes. All of a sudden, the urns around the bed that hadn't yet toppled or broken bubbled over with the sweet scent of wine. Being no stranger to such things, Alexander could already tell that the quality would be unassailable--its sweet scent, the deep rich hue, and such shimmer under the sun, in turn red and gold and precious besides.

The reality of the sudden appearance of boy, satyr, and wine finally pierced through the fog of confusion, and all swords were lowered as one as if bewitched.

Believing in the gods, and being graced with the presence of gods, were two different things. For the longest time, they were all dumbstruck and frozen on their feet. To be fair, they did fare better than some other mortals who were so stricken they expired immediately from fright or shock or even delight.

Feeling rather indulgent, the boy Dionysus decided to give them time to collect their wits. He toddled off the bed and collected two wine-filled urns that were supposed to receive Hephaistion's heart and liver. He handed one to his beloved mentor who was already taking long, enjoyable pulls from his own wineskin.

True to form, the King--first amongst equals--found his tongue first, "Did you take Hephaestion?"

"No." Dionysus scooted up the bed. Some wine sloshed onto a patch on the bedspread, staining it like diluted blood.

"So where is he?"

"Somewhere." Seilenos grumped and chuckled around a mouthful of grape-soaked wine.

"What my King meant was that if we could have his body returned to us so that we may prepare for his funeral," someone said. Perhaps Ptolemy, perhaps Seleucus.

"Suck arse." Unmistakably Cassander.

"So you want his corpse back, then?" the boy asked, tilting his head to one side, eyes suddenly sharp.

"Heh heh," said Seilenos, before anyone could reply. "Have a seat, have a drink! You'd think Dionysus' wine isn't good enough for this King!"

"No! Of course not! Simply that our hearts were driven to distraction by heavy sorrow. That we must lose the company of a dear friend so quickly, and that now we may lose even the honor of his earthly remains." _Think Alexander! Think quickly! Or else you will lose your Hephaistion entirely._

The boy merely raises an eyebrow, wine-clouded eyes suddenly clear and sharp. A cocked head and a knowing smile. "Ah the poor King."

"But he still won't drink the wine though. What's wrong, King?"

So as not to anger the god, they sat and drank from Hephaistion's funerary urns.

 

* * *

 

Time and everything else seemed to stand still around them, as though they existed in a bubble and everything was a dream.

They drank and the boy god regaled them with stories of his travels and Seilenos provided embellishments.

For some reason, the old satyr got along very well with Cassander, chattering like magpies, leaning against a broken carved thing that could've been a miniature of the Nymphaeum in Mieza. Or it could've been a massive coprolite for all Alexander cared.

Conversation flowed around him but he barely could follow what was being said.

Finally the boy god took pity of him and sighed. The boy's image shifted like a mirage, and a young handsome man took his place. Handsome was of course an understatement, and everyone ogled the man openly, despite a feeling of trepidation that the god might take offense to such base behavior.

Dionysus preened.

"Well, I've always enjoyed the sacrifices you made," Dionysus said. "As I have also enjoyed the ones offered by your devout mother. Which puts me on a bind, to be honest. Because what you want and what she wants, are not usually the same things.

"Unlike you, she is devout only to me. Unlike you, she wish nothing more than to separate that man from you." He made a show of patting an empty spot on the bed, where Hephaistion's sweaty forehead had once lain. "Though, I must say. If not for her very pleasing sacrifices and offerings and her devoutness, I would've smite her myself for all her lamentations. But I understand a woman's love for her child.

"So, how is it going to be?"

His generals seemed unaware of this conversation, singing bawdy songs in between telling bawdy jokes. Alexander stared at the man who was calmly inspecting the bedspread, sometimes making remarks about some of the embroideries.

What would this god demand of him for the return of Hephaistion? What could he give? No. What wouldn't he give?

Seilenos watched the shifts of emotion across Alexander's face. Someone ought to tell the boy that he needed to work on his expressions. Anyone could read secrets off his grimaces and discover things off those brows. The young men around him, wondrous specimens all. Alexander sure knew how to pick them, he thought to himself.

But he watched the tired king with those proverbial dark clouds hanging above him and felt sorry. He nudged Dionysus and gave a knowing flick of his head, the one that Dionysus said made him look like a horse. "Why don't you show him?"

Both Dionysus and Alexander turned sharply toward him, fair heads both.

"Damned old goat," Dionysus gruffed affectionately. "Take away all my fun..."

Seilenos merely lifted an eyebrow and grinned then turned away to join in a sudden burst of song.

"Fine." The god huffed and turned back to Alexander. "I must warn you, you can't return it if you don't like it."

There wasn't time to formulate an answer.

 

* * *

 

 _And . . . about a plant I will tell thee:_  
_This plant, like the buckthorn is it. . ._  
_Its thorns will prick thy hands just as does the rose,_  
_If thy hands obtain the plant, thou wilt attain life.'_

 _Gilgamesh says to him, to Urshanabi, the boatman:_  
_'Urshanabi, this plant is a plant apart,_  
_Whereby a man may regain his life's breath._

 _I will take it to ramparted Uruk,_  
_I myself shall eat (it)_  
_And thus return to the state of my youth.'_

 

  
Sometimes, Alexander wondered, whether the gods put humans on earth just for laughs. To amuse them when they became tired of dice and of races across the sky.

He marveled at the bundle that appeared rather suddenly in his folded arms, and he held himself so rigidly so as not to drop his precious cargo.

"Do you like?"

He chanced a glance up from his position, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Dionysus had turned back into his mischievous boy persona, which he favored. He had seen the way people look at him when he took the guise of a youth, the fascination and the fear that came with such a look. No, better to be a cuddlesome boy. Eros had the right idea of it, to not look so threatening, and perhaps to give a sense of security, false as it may be.

One of those patsies, it would seem, was the Great King himself. Not so great now, with his poleaxed look.

"Is... is this..." Alexander stuttered, his head moving up and down, eyes gazing alternately between the boy god who stood there expectantly, and the baby who seemed to be watching his every move.

 _A baby! A baby! With his beloved's blue eyes! A baby!_ Alexander didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Well, I couldn't return the big one, the body's too far gone. Four days in abysmal conditions." It was ridiculously easy to trap Hephaistion's shade from passing, since he had not been given a coin. But the physical body was another story, the boy tutted, looking around the too-hot room. "He would've returned to you damaged. Not to mention his brain." He looked at the embalmers leaning against the far wall, frozen in time. The embalmers had poked a little bit of the general's dead brain, damaging it, though it was nothing that couldn't be fixed. With time. Lots of time.

He could've stopped them but he had come in a bit late, for he had to talk to Asclepius. During his travels, he had heard about a plant that grew in Uruk that could revive the dead completely. This he told the healer god. Asclepius claimed to know it, but that it only returned youth to an old self, and not to repair a rotten body, much less lead a shade back into it.

Neither could they take the general's dead heart and incubate it in a person like what Zeus did for Dionysus, but Asclepius theorized that they could take what good that remained of the decaying body, and fashion a vessel for the shade. He might have to ask his Divine Father Apollo for help, even his aunt Artemis. There might be something left, and if they worked diligently, they might even produce a whole baby out of it.

The baby could still grow up into someone a bit slow, Asclepius warned, half-witted like the King's half brother, Arrhideus. But Dionysus had seen how taken his sister Athene was with the grown-up version. Perhaps she would look at the baby kindly again.

Not for the first time he wondered whether it was a good thing to drop such a huge responsibility literally on Alexander's lap when the man was grieving as deeply as he was. He wondered whether the man could rejoice in the gift that had been given to him, let alone remember to thank the gods for it. The man was already unhinged even before all this. Dionysus did not wish for his gift to snap the last of the man's sanity. And yet, Seilenos had counseled him that Alexander was made of tougher mettle than anyone could suspect. Then again, Seilenos had been so far deep in his cups by then.

Dionysus sighed. Nothing he could do now. He shook his fair head and bent down to collect his old mentor and friend. "Come Seilenos! We depart!"

Alexander's head snapped up, momentarily tearing his gaze away from the solemn baby in his lap. Dionysus chuckled to see the panic in those eyes. Artemis had many times spoke about these sorts of bewildered look in newly-made fathers.

"Wai..."

"No," Dionysus cut him off mid speech. "Look, the Moirais are here." The boy pointed to somewhere behind them, and when Alexander turned his head, he disappeared along with his Mentor.

Three pairs of piercing hag eyes peered down at the baby who returned their gaze head on.

"We don't usually do this just as you please, you drunk! Where's the nine months head start we're owed?"

Blue eyes widened impossibly, then with a scrunch of a button nose, the baby wailed.

 

* * *

 

"We know this person," the three of them said to Alexander who was exhausted. "We've spun his thread once before."

No rejoinder was forthcoming, nor did they expect him to give one, though a reaction would be nice. After all they're doing him a favor. Ah, well. Let it not be said that the Fates could not be benevolent from time to time.

"Well I suppose I could spin a new one..." It was not quite a beautiful sight to see a Moirai sulking. By this time, most of the generals had passed out where they sat. Perdiccas was collapsed near enough to make unintelligible coos at the baby, but it may well be that he was just talking in his sleep.

"I don't suppose you have wool," Clotho's words brought him back to the matter at hand. The Moirai stood impatiently, and even though she wasn't doing it, she might as well be tapping her foot.

Thankfully, it was something that Alexander could provide, as he already had a barnful of animals meant to be sacrificed on Hephaistion's funeral pyre, with more to come.

He felt bile raising a burning path to his front teeth. Those animals weren't supposed to be for a funeral pyre. Hephaistion had been getting better, or so he was told. He remembered being so elated that he promised to make a worthy sacrifice of thanksgiving for his friend's healthy return. He never once thought that he would need them for a funeral. He never once guessed.

He balled his hand and belatedly realized he was squeezing the baby. He looked down, and sighed tiredly and gratefully. Red-faced and exhausted, the baby had stopped its wailing. Reduced to little hiccups, he was half-asleep.

Sometimes, hubris could be dangerous. He thought he'd have learned his lessons now.

But he had them nonetheless. The handsomest horses, the strongest bulls, the shiniest goats and the fluffiest sheep.

All of which seemed to have taken up residence in the Chiliarch's bedroom in a blink of an eye.

The Sisters made a show of hemming and hawing around some of the sheep, poking a sleeping bull, and even admiring some fat goats.

In no time at all, a few sheep lost their coats unceremoniously and a new thread was made and spun.

While Clotho continued to spin the thread of Hephaistion's life, the other two dithered in their decisions, walking up and down the length of the room, admiring this mural and that vase, stepping over the bodies of inebriated generals with a disapproving glare.

They finally decided that they were too agitated about the coming game of dice with the Erinyes and Eris to make a decision. Then in a blink of an eye the Sisters were gone.

Clotho disappeared mid-spin, and Alexander couldn't help but notice a few incredulous sheep had disappeared with her also. Atropos disappeared in the middle of a speech, commending her sister on how fat and strong the thread was, and how sad she would be to cut such a pretty thread. Always such a waste, she lamented ironically. Lachesis reminded everyone to wish them luck and to hope they win.

Everyone who was still sober or at least hovering on the edge all heard the unspoken "or else" echoing in their minds, and scuttled around accordingly.

All the while, the baby slept against Alexander's chest, a map of India already forming over his left breast.

 

*****

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Epic of Gilgamesh", [this online version](http://www.mircea-eliade.com/from-primitives-to-zen/159.html)


	2. Messy beautiful

With the sleeping baby flopped over his left shoulder, short body flush along his upper arm and fragile neck held in the cradle of his palm, Alexander levered himself up with his right. With a swift kick in each rib, he jolted his generals into relative soberness. Perdiccas was the first to regain his head.

"It really _is_ true," he groaned, rubbing his temples with the heel of his hands, fingers kneading the sides of his head. His eyes on the sleeping baby.

"How are we going to explain that he's alive again? But as a baby? Not everyone's going to believe us, you know," Seleucus groaned and flopped once again on his back, staring at the murals across the ceiling, as though it held answers to his questions. "We can hardly believe it ourselves."

"And not everyone believes in the same gods we do, if at all," Ptolemy, master of stating the obvious. They could care less about the heathens and unbelievers; their number insignificant. But he doubted that many others would share their awe. From the King of Porus, he learned that at least some or even most of India believed in reincarnation, so he's not too worried about that part of the world.

He's not quite sure about Persia. He heard that they didn't, but he couldn't be sure. He realized he had been remiss in learning about Persia outside all things matrimonial. He knew even less about Egypt, despite his personal fascination with it, since Alexander barely stayed there long enough before leaving again. 

Hephaistion would know. But he couldn't answer right now.

The child sighed noisily and rubbed his cheeks against Alexander's shoulder. He sighed as well.

"At least the wine was good," Cassander quipped. He honestly enjoyed his verbal sparring with Seilenos, who by the time of his leaving had half convinced the young general to consider a vineyard as his retirement plan. Cassander, who had never thought so far into the future, found that he was fast warming up to it.

He studied the child sleeping against Alexander's shoulder and wondered whether his retirement would come sooner rather than later. His father would be sorely upset if he were to learn about his son's plans, though.

"How are we going to explain _him_?" asked Perdiccas, who had now drawn himself up to a sitting position.

"If we're going to pass him off as Hephaistion's son by Drypetis, he shouldn't even be born yet," Alexander replied, frustration bubbling forth. Hephaistion had been rather over-zealous with the no-touching-before-wedding rule, even trying to put off the climbing-onto-the-marriage-bed part of the celebrations for as long as was polite. On the other hand, Alexander also knew for certain that the general really did enjoy his conversations with his wife, who was so many years his junior and raised a world away.

Alexander could not imagine what the two of them could have in common, but the minds of women had always been a mystery to him.

Unlike the pragmatically cautious and sometimes also mysterious Hephaistion, Alexander was supposed to be someone who's rather good at thinking on his feet. At the moment, his mind was drawing a blank, as though all intellect had fled him. One thing for certain, whatever tale they would weave, the baby would still need to be raised.

They would need a good place, for one. Somewhere far from prying eyes and venomous souls, but still comfortable. He would not have Hephaistion raised in squalor. It would be nice to have something like Mieza for babies.

And they would need good, trustworthy attendants who would not flap their mouths. He wondered what exactly child-rearing would entail. He was childless yet, for one, and lacked the organization mettle of the other half of his soul.

He wondered about Hephaistion's mother. She would know what to do, she'd done it once before. She could tell him.

But then there was one night, a long time ago, a time when the both of them had somehow grown apart. Hephaistion had come to him almost out of his mind with grief. His mother had followed her husband down to the house of death, reducing the House of Amyntor to one. Orphaned. A desolate existence, no matter the age. So, no mother. Not for many summers now.

And he needed to keep the baby away from Olympias. And from Roxana. Perhaps Old Sisygambis would be healthy enough and could be persuaded to accompany her granddaughter. But that would require another alibi. The less people knowing the better, Alexander thought.

"Now we just have to talk to Drypetis about it," he wondered loudly. Easier said than done, he found.

He imagined the talk not going well at all. How do you ask a woman to raise her infant husband?

He felt a headache coming.

*****

"We need to get these animals out of here," Leonnatus said without making no effort to do so himself. He was quite happy with lounging against a fluffy sheep that was munching on one of Hephaistion's Persian robes. As were some of the other animals. Not that Hephaistion would be needing any of those any time soon, but Alexander remembered gifting some of them for anniversaries and such.

Just another occasion of saying goodbye to an old life, he supposed, absently patting the baby as it dripped drool down his back.

"We still need to find a body for the embalmers to work on. Maybe if we smash the face thoroughly enough, it could work," said Perdiccas.

"We currently have no prisoners awaiting death, and even when we did, none resembled him."

"How about Cassander?" It barely had to be said out loud by anyone, to be honest. Sometimes, and from certain angles, Cassander could pass for Hephaistion to the untrained eye.

It was amusing to see Cassander's face turning from joviality to genuine fear, as he saw his fellow generals size him up rather seriously.

Cassander could very well have to give up his dream of establishing a winery if not for the awakening of the embalmers and everybody else.

It seemed that Dionysus's spell had finally worn off.

Generals picked themselves up off floors, straightening up, tying sandals on the wrong foot, brushing away away goat hairs and stray droppings.

Animals disappeared as efficiently as they had arrived.

Alexander barely had time to shove the baby inside a large linen cupboard, the one with airholes down one side. Thankfully the baby remained asleep, snuggling down on what turned put to be a pile of soft blankets.

 

* * *

 

It was the oddest thing, but a facsimile of Hephaistion's body suddenly appeared on the bed, looking for all the world as though it had always been there. At least to those who didn't know any better. So eerily similar that Alexander felt he was diving headlong again into a heretofore postponed sorrow.

The embalmers acted like nothing odd had happened, as though fainting was a common hazard of their occupation. They and Hephaistion's bewildered pages soon decided, independently amongst themselves, that the body's disappearance had been a mirage. A hallucination caused by the odour of a death-saturated room.

They were so convincing in their rationalization that it began to feel real even to the generals and the King who should've known better. Alexander was amused to see his generals trying very hard to stop themselves from checking the cupboard.

"My best work since Pandora, if I do say so myself," all of a sudden, a whisper from Alexander's right.

The man looked a bit like his father Philip, but with two eyes and perhaps twice the height and width. Soot upon dark skin, and the metallic scent of a forge. If he were to look down, he would see the man's hand wrapped around a cane and also his lame foot. But Alexander, Great King of unparalleled self-control most of the time, merely looked the man in the eye.

Hephaestus grinned, which looked more like a scowl, and winked out of existence.

*****

The embalmers grumbled about some of the broken urns. If they smelled dried wine on the ones unbroken, they kept quiet about it.

Alexander, a picture of a still-grieving man but one who was at more peace now, spoke to them in a kindlier way. They were afraid that the delay would make Hephaistion's spirit restless. Alexander told them that the general would be merciful. They were afraid that his passage to the afterlife would be hindered. Alexander told them that the gods would be kind to Hephaistion. Then, tired of smiling, Alexander turned to divide tasks between his generals, made orders that the embalming process should be unhindered as much as possible.

A new room would be found for them, for instance, so they could work more properly.

The potters would work with them for new urns. Silversmiths and metalworkers would work day and night if need be to replace their broken arcane tools.

He assigned Seleucus to be their facilitator, as it seemed that the general had some interest in this embalming process for some odd reason. They quickly left, wanting to inspect what the palace had to offer in terms of rooms.

The rest of the generals had their orders too. The pyres, monuments and mourning edifices simply wouldn't build themselves. They divided jobs between themselves and left post-haste, casting surreptitious glances at the linen cupboard.

 

* * *

 

 

When everyone had gone, he could finally see the unsettling reality in front of him. The room looked like one of those pitiful villages after Alexander's army blew past them. Broken furniture, shattered vases, goats piss and horse dung. Discarded wool that had balled up, now tumbling around in the breeze collecting dust motes. Torn fabric and fallen armors. Too bright light taking away the welcome shroud of shadows.

In the midst of the wreckage lay a replica of his dead lover. It pained him to look at the body as he did. But this close, and in this quiet, he could finally see that the fire god had created something extraordinary; unsurprising really, since the original was already a sight to behold. All the scars were there, he noted absently, but too perfectly settled, the edges smooth. The face was also disconcertingly proportional, where the real one would have one eye slant higher than the other, one side of the lip curled down lower than the other. One nostril should've been rounder, but here they were uniformly flat.

The rest of the body was equally too proportional. This mirage on the bed looked like it had never lived, and indeed no breath or life had ever passed it. It had not the soul, the force of will, the loss and despair that etched themselves on his lover's brows. He looked down at this perfect artifice--perfectly quiet, beautiful, and coldly distant, in the middle of a broken landscape.

A sound of shuffling broke his stillness. Perhaps the embalmers had found a room and now back to move the body from here.

He looked up and around. There was no embalmer, only Drypetis and two of her handmaidens. They sketched a sign of respect and waited just within the doorway waiting to be invited in.

He would prefer to deal with embalmers than with the wife of his dead lover. "Princess," he said, a croak in his throat.

He watched as she picked her way across debris, and just then he had a moment of clarity. Perhaps he needn't have to overthink it. Hephaistion always praised him of his sharp mind, his silver tongue, and his instinct to do what was necessary. He hoped his wits wouldn't desert him now.

He detached himself from his sentry by the bed, and signaled the ladies to move to the cupboard with him. Puzzled and perplexed though they were, they knew enough to follow him without protest.

He opened the cupboard with uncharacteristic care and slowness. He was even prepared for the gasps of surprise that followed.

"Oh! So it _is_ true!" Drypetis breathed out. It took Alexander a while to realize that he understood what Drypetis was saying in her native Persian. Hephaistion would be so proud of him.

"You knew?" It came out like a bark, but Drypetis didn't seem to hear him, trembling fingers reaching out to touch a stray lock of baby hair.

"When... wh..." the Princess floundered for a while, then sighed and started over in her heavily accented Greek. "When my lord Hephaistion's body disappeared... well, that is to say, when it happened, we were distraught. But our Wise Lord Ahuramazda came to us and spoke to us. He was not happy that foreign gods put their nose in places that don't belong."

"But our Wise Lord understands your way even if it is different to ours. Though perhaps your way is not so wise," she looked up, and watched him with her dark eyes. "You will forgive me for my being so forward, Great King, but this is quite reckless of you and your gods." Alexander couldn't help but laugh, then wondered what else the Persian God had said or given her.

They shared a stretch of polite amusement before turning grave once again. "He understands also about your grief, Great King."

She looked older now than when she was at the wedding mere months ago. He wanted to offer some words to her; he's not so blind as to miss the edges of her own sadness.

"We have much to think about, Princess," he cautioned instead.

"Yes! And much to do," she said, shaking her head in dismay. "The Wise Lord has a place for me and my husband-child. With the help of your god Diyenikus..." she hesitated but he made no move to correct her. "He will cloud the minds of your courtiers. They will accept that I have gone elsewhere to mourn, with my two handmaidens, even as I carry the last proof of my lord husband's love for me," she said, voice trailing into nothing. The poor girl, Alexander thought, widowed so swiftly and so young. Her whirlwind romance. And now, in no time at all, suddenly motherhood. Even now, trying to be strong in the face of yet another duty thrust upon her. Alexander decided not to dwell on it.

"I will try to visit," Alexander said. "You will allow me to visit?" He felt so unsure now. Where would this safe haven be? The Persian deities could as easily hide it from him. Even with the Twelve's help, he knew in his heart that it was only the Persian's grace that he must appeal to.

"It is for you that he has returned," the Princess said in reply, quietly like a gentle wind. "Your heart will know where to look." It was not an answer at all.

They looked at each other quietly and openly, and a thin, tenuous understanding was reached in the spaces between.

Drypetis stepped forward to embrace the sleeping baby, her demeanor more like a seasoned mother than a young girl who had yet to experience childbirth. The older and sterner-looking of her two handmaidens came to her with a long piece of thick fabric to wrap the baby in. "I shall name him Hephaistion, in remembrance of my husband, and because it is also the truth."

*****

There was a hidden door that led to the outside, and they stood hovering in front of it, unsure of what to do. Alexander, who had stared down countless enemies and prevailed over mountains, found himself to be helpless. Again, it was Drypetis who found her voice first. "Do not fear," she soothed, perhaps more to the agitated baby in her arms than to the King in front of her. "This is not goodbye, husband of my sister."

And then she was gone.

 

* * *

 

Studying the form on the bed, he realized that the embalmers would soon return, and he would be needed elsewhere.

There was truth in Drypetis's frustrated words. The Olympians were indeed willful in their gifts, but he recognized the gift for what it is. A beautiful and messy gift.

He came to a thought, conjured up the image of a man with long hair and long beard that he saw on the walls and ceilings of Darius's palaces, and winged a prayer for the safe passage of his sister-in-law and her child, his nephew.

Alexander felt as though he had found a new truth unfolding in front of him. If Hephaistion could, he would caution Alexander about hubris. Yet Alexander really believed that even now, his dream of worlds coming together had perhaps stretched beyond the mortal realm and into the divine.

Silence fell like a cloak around him, and it sounded like finality.

At the same time, though, he felt the cold grip of sorrow easing its hold from around his constricted heart. A strange sense of peace settled around his soul.

 

*****


	3. Interlude I: you're welcome any time

It was good that they had embalmed the body in such a way that people from around the world could come and gaze at Alexander's lost general. And came they did, from across the known world, led there mostly by curiosity, though some by respect. They had seen the grand gestures made by the Great King Alexander, and they wished to see the reason behind them.  

He was laid to rest in one of the palace's grandest rooms, all gilt and marble. Hephaistion would've recoiled if he could. 

In one corner of the room, two men stood in the shadows. One built like a mountain, dark skinned and hard edges, the scent of molten iron and smoke seemed to pour out of his pores. The other man looked small compared to the giant, despite being not small at all. Sharp eyes, dark and bottomless like the abyss, watched the procession of humans with detached interest. 

Long fingers pointed at the body on the bier, "That's a very good thing you made."

"Well, I've had lots of practice," came the modest reply. Big rough hands toying a simple cane that looked more like a toy than a walking implement. 

"The flesh was very forgiving. My embalmers were able to practice new techniques on it," the olive-skinned man spoke in praise, leaning against the wall. "What a waste that they'll burn it in the end."

"It's our way," a ponderous reply. "I can make you a new one, if you want."

"Oh, don't mind me," he said with a wave of his hand, casting deep fragrances that could not hide the scent of eternal death. "I still have so many, though maybe none as good as this one." A pause. "Humans die all the time."

The chuckle that came was deep and rumbling, as though it came from somewhere deep within the earth. "My brother, Dionysus, isn't so happy with you. Said you gave him the wrong times." Hephaestus still remembered Dionysus's drunken rambling. Anubis made him late, he said. Couldn't save the brain, he said. Athene was mad at him, he said. _Why is everybody suddenly on my case? The man was dead!_ On and on he whined. The wily old goat mentor of his had even abandoned his charge for a mortal who appeared to have an entrepreneurial spirit. Hephaestus had half the mind to throw the boy god into his smelter.

"I did so give him the correct times," Anubis protested, perhaps also petulantly. "Though sometimes, I think my embalmers take short cuts. Prayers, purification, extraction..." 

"Well, you don't need to explain it to me," Hephaestus stopped Anubis mid-speech, patting the Egyptian's shoulder comfortingly. "Those things are beyond my comprehension." A frown. "But the original body was already deteriorating anyway, it shouldn't matter what you did or didn't do. Dionysus is just being his contrarian self. He'll get over it."

There's a sudden commotion from the door as the procession of people were halted. "Here, look. The real culprit has arrived." For it was true that the blame of rotting flesh should lie on Alexander's feet. Not for the first time he wondered how someone could love so much that it became destructive. 

* * *

Every day, Alexander made a point to come visit his dead lover's body. Sometimes with one of the Companions, other times just him alone with his pages hovering nearby. He was heartened to see how many people came to pay their respects to Hephaistion.  

Later he would go to supervise the building of the monuments and the pyre. Every day he made changes to the design, as nothing was sufficiently grand enough in his mind. The way this had gone, it would be an Age before they could burn the body. Good thing, then, that it was Hephaestus-forged. 

After the inspections, Alexander would go about his day with a restless energy, heaping work on himself and everyone else, even if he no longer felt the same burning need to go to Arabia and conquer the deserts there. He needed distraction. 

He could still feel the weight of a baby's form along his arms, the ghost of small sweet breath against his shoulder blade, and the shape of a fragile neck on his palm. 

Looking down at the immobile body, he sighed loudly, fingers worrying the little golden tassels that decorated the edges of the bier. This was so confusing for him. 

He wondered how long he would have to wait, before the gods finally let Drypetis send word to him that he may come. The waiting was unbearable for him. Food and wine felt like dust on his mouth and rocks in his stomach. He could not sleep because his head was so full of what-ifs. He no longer entertained suicidal thoughts, but he wondered whether exhaustion and anxiety would kill him all the same. 

Out of the corner of his eyes he caught the two men who were examining him from their places by the far wall. The Fire God, he recognized. Next to him, a man of sharp angles with a feral grin like that of a jackal's. He nodded to them respectfully, and when he took his eyes away from them another second, they were gone. 

* * *

 

Ptolemy glanced to where Alexander had looked. He didn't know the two men, but they had an air of divinity about them. Since Hephaistion's death, he had become accustomed to gods coming in and out without so much as a by-your-leave, treating the palace like a common agora. Then again, he's but one mortal and would never claim to understand the Divine Way.  

Clotho had even been back twice, come to think of it, dumping bald sheep and collecting new ones. He wondered whether she's spinning an exceedingly long thread for Hephaistion, or making other people's threads with wool from Alexander's sheep. 

Maybe the next time she came for a fresh herd, he'd ask her. 

* * *

Cassander was wondering what to write to his father. After that day, an agreement was reached that all Companions and Regents could be told about the news. Not about the Chiliarch's passing, because it was already common knowledge, but about his return. Cassander did not say anything when Perdiccas argued against telling so many people about the baby. There would be consequences, he had warned. Even when nobody quite knew what the consequences were. 

Staring at the empty parchment, Cassander thought that they could tell the whole world about the baby and the strange circumstances about its appearance, and nobody would believe them. 

He remembered writing to Crateros about it. He remembered receiving a reply from the absent general saying that grief had turned every one of them into idiots. 

His father would laugh, Cassander decided, perhaps even choked on a chicken bone if he were to read the letter during dinner time. Would it be patricide then? He pushed the empty papyrus back to the far edge of the table, and turned to fish out some scrolls he had stored underneath his pillow.

He's still not sure about the irrigation plans he had drawn up for his future vineyard. Maybe next time when Seleinos came to dine with them he could ask the old satyr.   

* * *

Seleucus watched his wife do her needlework, on a bench by the window with their son sleeping on her lap. He had come to similar scenes in the past since she came to join him in Ecbatana as part of Drypetis's entourage. It never failed to warm his heart. 

She had come to him full of anxiety, from the women's wing, on the evening of that very strange day. She had tripped over her words as she told him about Drypetis's disappearance from the palace, that the servants and eunuchs had all but turned the palace upside down in search of her. Some captains had even tried to breach the Chiliarch's inner bedroom to notify the king, but they had been kept away. He had told her not to worry, that Alexander had had something arranged for the Princess. Surely nothing would befall the King's own law-sister.

He never told her anything more than that. Perhaps she wouldn't believe him, or maybe she would. But the less people who knew the better. 

Apama looked up from her work, and smiled at him, putting a finger against her lip and nodded to their sleeping child. By the window, illuminated by the blaze of a setting sun, they sat together. In between whispers and kisses, she spoke to him about the things she had seen and heard over the course of the day. Most of it was about Roxana's growing jealousy, about rumors and plots. There's no love lost between the two women, having been at each other's throat since India.

Their son woke up, blearily blinking up at him like a squirrel. And in just a minute, the little boy chattered about a new friend he had found in the boy's courtyard. He was so handsome, Little Antiochus said, like the sculpture of the boy Eros he had seen in the King's sculpture garden. 

"Then, Father," the boy said, speaking in a theatrical whisper. "he smell like you after King's _komos!"_

* * *

Perdiccas was tired of fighting off rumors and explaining himself.

A few days after that fateful day, the Moirais had dropped into Alexander's office demanding more sheep. Alexander had wasted no time to assign Perdiccas to accompany the Sisters to the pasture.

After the picking, they had turned around and told him to get better quality sheep for next time.

"Wait, you're coming back?"

The three sisters had exchanged looks between them, as though it was something they hadn't really thought of before. "Eh, sure," they had replied with a shrug.

They had come back. In fact it was just yesterday. Clotho had come to his bedroom late yesterday and woke him up rather rudely. "I've taken a few more sheep from the pasture, but really, I need better ones! Like the ones I got the first time would be better."

He had nodded and made a show of writing it down though he couldn't read his own handwriting in the morning.

"Well, I best be off. Don't forget!"

"I won't, madam," he had replied, in his best respectful voice.

"Oh wait! Here, I'm giving these back." He didn't have the opportunity to say anything because a naked sheep had fallen right on his head and knocked him out cold.

He had woken up this morning to the sound of bleating and shouting. It had taken his pages a good hour to shoo sheep out of his room, and there really wasn't any discreet way of doing it. Everybody had gotten an eyeful.

Rumors spread like wild fire and gained traction throughout the day.

Now, standing next to Ptolemy, who was thankfully keeping his counsel to himself, Perdiccas sighed. He hoped that the rumors would die down once the sun set. Perhaps people would find other gossip to amuse themselves with.

He really didn't know what he did to deserve this treatment. Were the Sisters really so unhappy with his choice of sheep? Did he say something bad last night?

Perhaps he'd ask the Moirais next time. He shuddered. So not looking forward to it.

 

 


	4. Our dreams do not end with death

Their entrance to Babylon was a grand occasion--the army behind him, the welcoming masses, Babylon graceful and majestic in front of him.

But when he had once entered it triumphant, having had won the world, now he came to it in defeated and mourning. He had ordered it to be so, as well, to make the whole city a physical embodiment of his sorrow.

He glanced to his side, and saw an empty horse where Hephaistion should be. His hand tightened around the reins and the horses that pulled the carriage almost came to a stop. He had insisted to steer Hephaistion's funeral carriage himself, ashes of his beloved behind him in a gold box.

It was never a far ride from the outermost wall of the city to the palace, but it felt a long way away. Yet, it came to view soon enough, inevitable, like everything else in life. He saw the signs of mourning hanging from the battlements and windows, on the walls and on the people crowding on the balcony.

He knew his mother would be there, for she had written to tell him, in no uncertain terms. He didn't expect though to see Roxana standing quite so near to his mother, while Old Sisygambis stood like a veritable barrier to guard Stateira and Parysatis.He also saw someone who could be Barsine. He had left it up to her to come, but he had hoped she would, as Hephaistion was fond of her.

Most of all, he saw Drypetis with a baby on her hip.

 

* * *

 

The day had stretched for what felt like forever, and it had given him quite a black mood. Quite a small miracle that no gods or goddesses came and demanded attention, Alexander thought darkly, or else he would really consider falling on his sword.

All of his prickliness had sent everyone scurrying away, leaving him alone in Darius's enormous bath. Even after all these years he still thought of things as Darius's. This was Persia after all. He wondered if he would ever gotten used to it. Darius's enormous bed, his bath, his rugs. And sometimes, though rarely, Darius's boy.

He heard the voice of the self-same 'boy' floating to him all the way from his bedroom, unhappy and quite panicky. There were also murmurs. The clatter and flurry in the outer chambers brought back certain memories from the past--perhaps never fond, but no longer lined with a bitter edge.

He counted inwardly, a small smile on his lips, and sure enough the door to his bathing chamber burst open at the hinges.

"My son," Olympias said imperiously, smiling contentedly as he recoiled very slightly more out of habit than of genuine horror.

His Persian attendants tried to draw the Queen Mother out of the bathing chamber with words like _improper_  and _unbecoming_  thrown around under their breaths. "Oh hush," she had said, "There's nothing about him I haven't seen!"

His pages, young enough to not have seen the Queen within such close quarters, were equally baffled. Unlike their Persian counterparts, however, they had grown up on fearsome mythical stories about the Snake Queen, and knew enough to rally around and draw the Persians away.

Sitting half-submerged in his rapidly cooling bath water, Alexander watched the whole tableau with an amount of amusement and trepidation.

Everyone stepped aside soon enough, away from the doorframes and from his mother--more lines on her face, streaks of white artfully arranged like her beloved white snakes around her shapely head--who smiled widely at him.

"Look who's here to greet you!" said this earthbound Medusa.

Only belatedly he realized that his mother was carrying tow-headed Hephaestion, cloudless blue skies in his eyes.

 

* * *

 

They sat on chairs and couches pulled onto the balcony. His mother sat next to him on a heavily cushioned bench, and Drypetis off to the far side, her eyes fixed on the toddler on Alexander's knee. Everyone else had been sent away, but they spoke in hushed tones if they spoke at all.

If he looked hard enough, he thought, he could perhaps imagine the outline of the grand building he had planned for Hephaistion. Beyond the palace, and just over the horizon. He had ordered for monuments to be built in Ecbatana and other cities he had conquered and Hephaistion had helped establish. He wanted a tomb for his beloved, here in Babylon.

As adolescents in the brink of their trial by fire, nervous about their first battle, they had spoken of burials and the afterlife. It was a morbid discussion on the eve of battle, but from it he had learned about a grove lying almost at the edge of Hephaistion's family estate. Alexander had been there a few times since then. It was a magical place, and the longest time, also the end of Hephaistion's rainbow.

But on his mother's passing, some summers ago, Hephaistion had made arrangements for the land to be sold. He had no family, he had reasoned, no distant relatives he cared about. Alexander hadn't put much thought into it, back then. Now it dawned on him that it had been Hephaistion's way of saying goodbye to a past life. His lover had known, perhaps even before Alexander himself had realized, that he would not see the Hellenes ever again, so far had they strayed to the ends of the world.

Now, with a sorrowful Babylon stretched out before him, Alexander realized that Hephaistion had nothing left to tie him to their homeland, because he followed Alexander. Unlike his king, though, Hephaistion had loved that part of the world.

If he ever needed proof of Hephaistion's love for him, he thought bitterly.

Perhaps he would build another mausoleum in Pella, or in Athens, or both. Perhaps he could take the baby Hephaistion to Aegae and Mieza, once he's old enough to travel. He would give back to Hephaistion something he couldn't do when his lover had been alive.

*****

Hephaistion had been placed on the crook of his arm, facing inward. Olympias had made sure that the baby's neck would be well-supported against his upper arm. He was well-swaddled, despite the warm night air. It would be cold soon, they knew.

"He's small," he marveled at how fragile this guise was. Time had indeed passed generously since he first held the baby. He hardly seemed grown at all, except for the addition of hair on his head. Alexander could feel the little heart in that little chest beating as fast as a hare's. He could pass as any age, Alexander thought.

The baby kicked at Alexander's medallion and laughed at his own cleverness. It came out in little squeaks. He seemed happy.

"He was always a small child. I remember Philip teasing Amyntor about it. Too small. Already too pretty, even as a baby," Olympias said, as she sipped her wine, one leg tucked underneath her. "He was never sickly, mind you, but he was never as strong as you. Then, suddenly he shot out and up upon puberty." She smiled at the memory, watched her son brush hair out of Hephaistion's face. Alexander marveled at how soft and fair it was, just as he imagined a cloud would be. Moonlight turned it white.

"I remember him. I saw him, when Amyntor came to show his firstborn to Philip," Olympias added, when she caught her son's fascination with the baby's hair. "He had very fair hair as a baby; a seer said he had hair of a wise man. It darkened with time, with hardship and sorrow."

"Peace," Olympias exclaimed quickly even as she saw shadow and remorse fall across her son's face. "It is the way humans are. You were born with fair hair too, which matured into gold of the ages. Soon, it will become white. Like the peaks of Hindu Kush."

"We call him Little Zal," Drypetis said, after a while. Zal was one of the old kings of Persia, born with a face like paradise and hair like snow, raised by mythical beings. In both melodic Persian and economical Greek, she spun a tale of phoenixes and little boys in a way a mother would deliver a child's bed time story.

Alexander shifted his hold so the baby could see and hear his mother better. Soon enough, he began to fight futily against the call of Hypnos. Alexander laughed inwardly at the sight.  _Always the stubborn one._  

 

* * *

 

Soon, Drypetis asserted her motherly prerogative and drew the baby away from Alexander's hands, so that the little sleepyhead could be returned to the nursery. The baby fussed and huffed lightly during the exchange, but quickly settled in his mother's arms. Though he was much too young to understand the day's events, the baby had been present for all of them, from a good distance so as not to agitate him with the crowds and smells. He had too much excitement and it was already past his bed time, besides.

The baby had been warm against his heart, but now his arms were empty and the wind chilled him to the bone. He stared blindly out to the city beyond, barely registering the warmed cup of wine pressed into his hand by his mother.

If he were a child, it would be milk.

"You're confused," she said to him in hushed tones, and Alexander recognized the harshness of age in the timbre of her voice. "That he is his own son."

He turned around so quickly he almost fell out of his seat. For no reason he felt his blood surge as though he was in battle again, with Porus and his elephant rising up above him. Then he found her eyes, cold, but without artifice.

"Of course Dionysus would tell me," she said after what felt like the eternity it took for his breathing to slow, for the tide of his blood to recede."Though I didn't believe it at first! What grand jest, isn't it? I wager you could hardly believe it yourself, even though you were there."

"I know that he is returned to you," she said, with a sense of kindness belying it all. "In a sense, he is who he was. At the same time, not as he was and never will be again."

"You never liked him," he accused bitterly.

"I've grown to like him," she said with a dismissive wave. "Once I realized the form of his devotion to you, it was easy to like him. And in this form?" she paused, smiling fondly, nodding at the direction of where Drypetis and the baby had gone. "He is easy to love". She held his eyes and spoke a simple truth, "Even now, he's looking out for you."

"What do you mean?"

"I think it is time for you to try again for a son, don't you think? Really try, this time."

She uncurled herself, brushing creases off her dress as she stood up. She laid a bejewelled hand on his shoulder. She gave him a reassuring pat, as fondly as she always did. "Get him a little Alexander to care for."

 

* * *

 

_How far does the endless sky stretch?_  
_Such is our destiny, don't you see._  
_We'll marry sisters; and our sons?_  
_They will play together as we once did._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Zal and the Simurgh", [a synopsis](http://www.asia.si.edu/explore/shahnama/zal.asp)


	5. Dream some time

Like most things in his life, it all started joyful enough. It was the thrill of exciting discoveries. He acted like a treasure hunter hitting gold unwittingly or an old dog surprising the kennel master with new tricks.

He found that he could now reminisce memories of his own childhood without so much guilt. That he could make them his prayers to be wished upon his future sons.

He found that he could truly enjoy spending time with the women, either in conversation during the day, or in explorations at nights. 

When he came to Roxana for the first time since that sad day in Ecbatana, he learned about her miscarriage and shared in her sorrow. Although he did suspect that their sorrow were not quite of the same shape. They reminisced about their first meeting, their whirlwind courtship. They managed to find funny anecdotes about their shared experiences, of when she followed him on his march across continents. They spoke about everything and anything. He found that it was possible to leave her room without feeling riled up or annoyed. She'd never be biddable or politic, he realized, but he felt that he was finally able to finally look at her and remember why he married her in the first place. 

When he visited Stateira, and later, Parysatis, he learned what life was like for them, as princesses in the Persian court. He also found that these visits did wonders to his ego as an old king. His visits to the Persian princesses were less emotionally charged; there's a lightness to his visits, as they spoke more of an idyll that reminded him of the happier part of his childhood. Life at court, in any court, seemed to hold that storybook charm and myth that Hephaistion had so loved. 

They also taught him how Persian royal women engage their battles. He had learned much about Persian-style backstabbing techniques from many of his Persian supporters--some even came with real-life practical examples. Bagoas, too, was a font of knowledge in all things Persian. However, his service under Darius had limited his knowledge about a whole other network of the women's court under Sisygambis. 

When in the past Alexander had feared for the fates of the Persian royal ladies once Olympias got her claws in them, now he feared for his own life. 

Now he wanted nothing more than be away from the women; he felt a hankering for another campaign. He'd left Arabia alone long enough, hadn't he? He's man enough to admit that he had neither the stomach nor the courage to weather the kind of war being waged here within his palace walls. Like his father, he had foolishly believed that battleground was no place for women. 

After enduring a solid month and a half of it, he's beginning to rethink it. 

 

* * *

 

His mother actually had an Indian snake charmer in her employ, he noted absently, as he passed by a door that opened to the makeshift ophidiarium of the royal apartments. He retreated to the outer balconies and waited for her there. He was king, and yet he ran to her at her slightest summons. 

"What is this new petulance I hear?" 

He did not turn around to greet her, only kept his eyes glued to the horizon. He shrugged. No one's pregnant yet, and he had stopped trying. Perhaps the shine had gone. Perhaps, the adage is true, all good things in life would go to shit sooner or later. 

He sighed. He had never felt so tired in his whole life, not even when he was crossing Gedrosia. 

The view from the balcony was a pretty one, as pretty as the view on the other side of the palace. Tension had been climbing, and he had finally put some physical distance between Olympias the Queen Mother and Sisygambis the Old Queen. Though new to the city, Olympias had amassed quite a network of supporters. Roxana had moved to the same wing as Olympias after much strategic contemplation. He didn't think it would surprise him to find that she had replaced all the eyes and ears on the mural walls with those loyal to her.

In the meantime, Barsine had quietly removed herself as quickly as was polite, to return to her home and her son. The same son whom many people said was Alexander's, but whom Barsine herself never said anything about. Alexander sent a few loyal guards with her, not because he thought the boy was his, but because he worried for her safety.

"It's only going to get harder once they give birth to sons all at once," she said conversationally. Manicured fingers clicking on the balustrade. "I wonder which one choose as your heir, your crown prince. I think one from your hill-fort wife would be best. She reminded me of... well, me. She will not give you a coward for a son. Unlike those royals," she spat. "What use is it the blood of The Great Darius if you only have cowardice to show for? Decades of complacency have made them weak! She envies me, that Old Hag. She gave birth to a coward of a son who abandoned his own family in their time of need. While I raised you to be great.

"I think you should stop visiting the terrible two and concentrate on Roxana. She's a strong woman, and will give you a strong son. She miscarried before, so it's tricky. But we have remedies for that. Meanwhile, you are no longer young, and that hare-brained journey you took through the desert must've dried out your balls some. Don't worry, we have herbs for that too."

She persisted on. "Better still, now that you've proved to everyone that you're not really allergic to women, you should re-consider a Macedonian wife." Not having pure Macedonian blood had almost cost Alexander his crown, Zeus's bastard son with a barbarian wife notwithstanding. She still felt bitter by that fact. 

"You know what I think?" he said snappishly, peering sideways at her. 

"Oh? This should be good," she rolled her eyes.

"I think I should start planning for Arabia. I think I should marry Drypetis and then raise Hep... him... the baby, as my own. That will solve all my problems. Macedon will have her heir. I will be free of you lot." He made a punctuated gesture, sweeping his arms out and to the front in a pointed way.

She raised her eyebrows and laughed. He finally looked at her properly. She looked better than when she first arrived in Babylon. Like a lioness finally being set free among sheep after years of long captivity. No, Alexander thought, not sheep. Perhaps jackals or leopards, for his mother relished the hunt. 

"Did you know," she said in between her laughter, "Hephaistion was the one who sent that young snake charmer to me. Along with a basketful of cobra." 

  

* * *

 

Drypetis sat in a corner, one eye on her embroidery and one eye on the two people further to the center of the room. Her son was on his belly, legs up in the air, arms and elbows supporting him against thick carpet. Next to the baby was the Great King of Persia himself, also on his belly. The king was building something with sticks and blocks of wood, talking to the baby in Macedonian. 

Her mastery of Macedonian and Greek languages was rudimentary at best, but she was getting better. She knew that the king was speaking about a battle of some kind. She could recognize the beginning of a fort's wall being built.

Soon, the baby lost interest, or perhaps grew tired of supporting himself on his arms. He managed to slap at a part of the wall closest to him, even as he laid his rosy cheeks on the soft carpet beneath him. From this vantage point, the baby must've seen a mighty crumbling because he let out an excited squeak, legs kicking in the air. 

The King pulled himself up to sit among the fallen walls of a once mighty imaginary city. He laughed so heartily that Drypetis could almost imagine the sort of youth he had been, and which she only knew from her husband's late night reminisces. They had not come together very often, her husband and herself. But when they did, they would exchange stories in each other's arms. She had not meant to fall in love with him; it came to her like a thief at night. She had grown up dreaming about falling in love, and then brought up for duty. She had thought that both things were mutually exclusive, and had been pleasantly surprised that they were not. 

Their relationship must've angered a jealous deity somehow, she thought sadly. To have that wondrous time cut so short, almost before it could begin properly. But her husband had reached out from the afterlife to her, and gave her a son to cherish. Love and duty until the end. To her and to their King. 

Their mighty King was now laid flat on his back, hand outstretched so the baby could sit on his chest. He laughed when the baby kicked down the middle of his chest and then another kick that sent his medallion skittering up and hitting him in the neck. 

"I give! I give!" the King cried, in between laughs. "You've always been too good at wrestling!" he exclaimed, smoothing back the baby's cotton-cloud hair out of those big blue eyes. He caught Drypetis's shadow stretching long across the floor, illuminated by the late afternoon sun. Something like realization sobered him up. He looked up at the baby who was still peering down at him curiously, and sighed. "I mean, your father was always good at wrestling. Seems like you are, too!" 

He sat up, placing a steadying hand across the baby's back. "Zal! Zal! My little warrior Zal! Where's your mother?" he teased, bringing the baby to look around the room. The baby recognized his name and cooed happily, sought his mother's face in between the shadows. 

Drypetis was somewhat heartened that the King would stop referring to her son with the name of his dead lover, at least in her presence. She felt a little less worry now that the King seemed to accept that her Zal was inherently different from his Hephaistion, despite the baby's origins. Or at least, he was beginning to accept that her Little Zal was his own person, and wouldn't suddenly sprout back into an adult overnight. 

She looked down to her lap and found that she hadn't made even one stitch for long while now. Sighing, she set it aside, just in time to receive a squirming baby from a laughing King. She nudged her needlework away from little inquisitive fingers, hugging the baby close to her side. She saw the King looking at her contritely, even as he passed a hand through the baby's hair. 

"I miss him sometimes," he told her, though he could also be talking to himself. So she kept quiet. "Especially now that we flounder helplessly trying to prepare for Arabia," he grinned at her weakly. 

For the most part, her King spoke very little to her. When he did, she saw the great effort he took to honor her position as Hephaistion's wife. He didn't have to. She hoped he knew she was deeply grateful that he did. Perhaps one day, they could even talk about Hephaistion and the shape of his love for them. Perhaps one day, they could even tell the child of his real name, his legacy and his heritage, the fullness of his miraculous story. At the moment though, she only wished to covet what she had left to herself, and so she let the charade remain. 

"Will you bring him here again tomorrow?" the King asked, taking several steps back. "Aristotle, our old teacher, sent him some scrolls with stories from the _Illiad._ I have not seen it yet, but Aristotle mentioned that the scrolls have pictures in them." 

"It will be as you wish," she replied, as one of her handmaidens helped her to her feet. The other one collected all her needlework inside a wicker basket and held the basket against her hip. She fussed a little so she could comfortably carry her growing son, but she was also looking for a way to pass on a message from her sister. 

When she looked up again, the King already had his back to her, already striding toward his desk. She should be annoyed at the apparent dismissal, but instead she sighed in relief. She saw that the King understood, if not consciously then instinctively, that she did not wish to take sides in the increasingly vexing succession business. 

The king, on his part, kept his sight firmly on a piece of parchment as they left. Once the door closed, he pushed it aside, without reading or understanding anything from it. 

Drypetis's allegiance lay with her blood, naturally, but he knew that she wanted to stay out of the whole thing as much as possible. Everyone in the palace and beyond knew, if not guessed at, the unprecedented access she now had to Alexander; and her influence over the King would only grow along with the child. Even her grandmother, sister and cousin were beginning to whisper insistently in her ear, if not for one thing, then for another.

He also knew that once she shed her mourning weeds, there would be suitors lining up and down the Royal Road. Who wouldn't want to be step-father to the Grand Vizier's son? Meanwhile, nobody expected her to join the Temple, either. And even at the Temple she wouldn't be safe from people who would want to control the baby through the mother. 

Her allegiance though, was first and foremost, to her child, whom the gods themselves had entrusted to her. It wouldn't surprise Alexander if one day she were to disappear again. Alexander hoped that, when that time came, he would be able to visit the baby without having to wait for months. 

 

******

 

His eyes caught the sight of rolled up parchments, Aristotle's gift to Hephaistion's son. If only the old man knew, Alexander sighed, flicking absently at one floppy corner. Sometimes, he dreamed that the gods did not bring Hephaistion back as a baby but as a woman, the only one he would need. Why couldn't they have crafted him his own Galatea instead, who would help him fill his many palaces with small blue-eyed boys and small golden-haired girls. 

He dreamed of the two of them and their multitude of children, once grown, going out to conquer the world. Perhaps this time without a drop of blood, because he didn't like to think of his progeny as a bunch of little murderers and murderesses. 

No, they would instead head out of Babylon with joyful song. Their sons and daughters would be smart and diplomatic. They would placate warring tribes with their words, wrestle hardened politicians with their sharp minds, and charm lands out from under the feet of barbarians with their smile. Sure, Ares would be bored and send a few stragglers and rebels that would dare to challenge them, but that's what Alexander's there for.

Then, at night, Alexander would entwine himself with his only love, while their children would go out on a night hunt, their laughter echoing across the valley. 

 

 

 

 

 


	6. I remember

He wasn't lying when he said they were floundering in their attempt to prepare for Arabia. Personnel issues and little rebellions aside, most of Alexander's problems had something to do with logistics. His men were still wary of deserts, but they're beginning to feel the restlessness in their blood. They would march. However, they couldn't, wouldn't, march before everything could be set in place to avoid another Gedrosia.

The word "everything" took a new meaning over the course of a fortnight. Whenever they thought they had everything covered, some new issue came up. There were things that didn't even have a name yet, that were already causing problems.

Were they overly-judicious? Overly-cautious? It seemed that the list grew longer every day. Alexander had also sent numerous scouts and delegates--Egyptians, Persians, Bactrians, even Olympias's Hindu snake charmer had gone with one of the scouts and once again with a supply line delegation. Snakes were not all he could charm, apparently.

Was it old age that made all his generals cautious? Where's the spontaneity of youth, the excitement for the unknown?

Did they even want to go?

Everyone told him that it would be prudent to find as much information as possible, not just about the terrain but also the people, and everything else in between. Certainly they had visited many deserts, and most of those visits had been glorious. But the last one wasn't so great, was it? Furthermore, this would be their first campaign since India, and wasn't _that_  a big success?

For many new recruits and the old veterans who decided to follow Alexander still, this would be their first major campaign as a combined force of Alexander's new world vision. Would they work well together side by side? Could they?

For Alexander, this would also be the first one he would embark upon without Hephaistion riding by his side.

That thought alone was enough to send him out of the council rooms.

 

* * *

 

He laughed when he saw where he had ended up.

Hephaistion had kept a large office in Babylon. He had wanted a much smaller one, at the other side of the corridor, that had better view. The Persians had vetoed the king's dearest general's decision however. Afterall, appearances must be kept.

Alexander looked around the room and noted the stacks of documents spilling along one side of a table, and rolls of maps over several cabinets. There were also a veritable pyramid of document chests lying in the middle of the room--Hephaistion's traveling office. Not knowing what to do, with no one giving them guidance, Hephaistion's aides and pages had packed everything up, even ones that would normally be left in Susa and Ecbatana. All of Hephaistion's paperwork up until his passing sat in all those boxes, waiting to be sorted. Only that no one ever did.

Thinking that he would be as good as any to take a crack on Hephaistion's impossible but organized chaos, he knelt in front of one trunk. It was closest to the entrance, a large one, larger than the rest though not by much. There couldn't be much inside, as a light hand was enough to shift it slightly. Across one rim of the trunk's lid, someone had carved the word Arabia into the wood.

There were already several parchments inside, some had curled up, others laid out flat. He eased one out, a battered parchment that was both discolored and dirty at once. It looked like it had been folded and refolded many times, and had tight texts on both sides of it.

It was a list, he realized. A list of things that a good army might need to mount a campaign of conquering the Arabian peninsula, and at first glance, seemed longer than the one he had come up with.

At the top, underneath the underlined word "Arabia", Hephaistion had written _How big is it?_  followed by _is mostly desert_  in careful block letters. Next to it, small and spidery, as though written with thin, watered down ink, he wrote _hope its not ALL desert_. Over it, a shaky script that seemed to have been sketched into the fiber, _already yearning for rain_. It seemed that Hephaistion had started the list during their desert march. It was a jumble of neat block letters that occupied the middle of the parchment like a tree of knowledge, and spidery thin script that went everywhere and extended all the way to the very edge.

 _Map of Available Oases_ , Hephaistion had written assuredly. _There's no such thing as too many oases_ , was written as though with great desperation.

From grains to underground supply bases, to future scouting missions ( _find oases!_ ), flora and fauna ( _snake for O_ ), places with viable trees because tree means water nearby and overhead shelter; even one tree would be better than no tree, if only for the view ( _lots of good trees in India, no place to put siege engine, though... idea: siege engine with small footprint? forest with thick canopy, stone may fall on self. no canopy in desert_ ).

Odd how Alexander could tell when Hephaistion had finally succumbed to sunstroke and delirium, because his thoughts became disorganized. That the man could still write in such a condition, albeit almost undecipherably for Hephaistion's standards, worried Alexander greatly for some inexplicable reason.

From making friends with Arabian horse-breakers, to possibly have someone live with the local tribes ( _No Wedding!!_ ).

Reading through the list, Alexander began to realize that for most of their entwined lives, Hephaistion had skipped over the who, when, what, where, and why, to go directly to the How. Because the first five questions ultimately had one answer: Alexander wanted it. 

They had sort of spoken about it once, when they were young and foolish. Hephaistion had been astonished at how restless Alexander appeared to be.

"But don't you ever want to see the world? You like the Illiad, don't you? Don't you want to go where they go?" Alexander had asked.

"Before this, I would say 'I am content with my imagination', and my books, and the land that my father left us. I mean, in this country alone, I don't think you'll run out of things to see until you die," Hephaistion had replied. "But those are observation of little things, the smallest blade of grass, the newest fox litter."

Hephaistion had turned onto his belly then, under the sun by the river, warm smile and dancing blue eyes. "Homer makes me content, and I am content with my lot in life, that much is true. But I love you. And love makes fools out of all of us." Hephaistion had a way of answering questions without addressing them at all.

That day, the sky had been cloudless and Alexander had the clearest view of his great dream. He had told Hephaistion of it, with grand words and grand designs, and Hephaistion had taken every one of them as his own. Sometimes, Hephaistion would sit Alexander down and ask so many questions that days would bleed together. But rarely were these questions designed to oppose him, but so that Hephaistion could figure out how to go about it. Ultimately, like a fool, even in their most distant and darkest, Hephaistion would still find a way to give Alexander the things he wanted. 

_Ask Difference Between One Shouldered Camel and Two (goes farther? carries more things? spits less?)._

_please no side trips to any odd oracles._

"Sometimes, I don't think I even know myself anymore..." Hephaistion had told him, one day, when they could do naught but seek shelter. Idleness had made Hephaistion think too hard. They had taken the wrong turn at the wrong dune, it seemed, and Siwah was beginning to look like a myth. He had looked so sad, but Alexander had chalked it down to tiredness and frustration. 

_alternative armor. metal too hot, leather doesn't breathe. also been a long time since seen A. starkers._

_alternative type of wheels. obviously cart sink in sand. ask Diades for ideas._ It was crossed out. _Diades died last night._

Soon the list of things turned into a list of names. One or two names at first, with small notes to remember them by. Slowly, the epitaphs grew shorter, and all that's left were a list of names. Of people they lost in Gedrosia.

It seemed that Hephaistion had written them in such a hurry. As though the names would fade from his memory in the next second. Then there was a point where each alphabet grew smaller, spikier, as any writer would when they're running out of space and time. Then it curved around, wedged in between other words, skimming the parchment's edges. They looked like a knot of gnarly yarn, yet it's easy to follow the trail of letters, words, and memories. Until finally there was nothing left to read.

Other than the list, the box also held maps, some of which told contradictory things about the same places. There were drawings of things and writing of things. Reports wedged in between copies of allegedly-Arabian folktales.

Several carved things had gotten wedged into the corners of the box. Some totems, little wooden tents, camels. He fished the smallest one out, intent on giving it to Hephaist... Zal. He had to remember that name. Every time he forgotten and then remembered was like tearing a strip off a scab so it became a wound again.

The Arabian box suddenly lost its charm, and Alexander quickly replaced everything inside it in no time at all. He hesitated when to put back the parchment full of lists. So it stayed out of the box, next to the camel. The trunk would go with the rest into storage.

Perhaps no Arabia just yet. He had promised Hephaistion that he would consolidate the empire first, anyway, and it couldn't be done from a tent in a battlefield somewhere. He sighed. Now isn't this another fine basket of snakes he had opened? Hadn't Hephaistion warned him of this? A long time ago, too, long before they even set one foot out of Macedon.

Integration was harder than he first thought. And not just the army; it was as if he had just realized there were much more than just soldiers and palace staff. And in this place, away from campaign and an armed march, civilian disputes could not be treated like he would a camp follower, he thought darkly. Too many domestic murmurings that needed settling, a lot more than he had anticipated. Quiet defiance was doubly hard to quell now that Alexander couldn't just stone a person once he got bored of their babbles, and Hephaistion wasn't around to sweet-talk them into giving Alexander what he wanted.

He sighed and folded his arms over the top of the box, and laid his head over them. It's not as if he was an incompetent peacetime king; he could be a bloody good philosopher-king when he put his mind into it--ask Aristotle. But it didn't excite him. He had become too addicted to the heat of a battle, the quickening of his blood in pursuit.

Shifting to rest on one cheek, he caught a glimpse of a desk, and a chair, and a box underneath it. The desk was not quite in the middle of the room, but it wasn't against some wall either. In some ways, it was like a turnsole, perfectly positioned to receive the best light streaming from the different windows throughout the day. He chuckled to think that Hephaistion would be as Clyteia left pining for Apollo. The chair was not quite so well positioned, strategically speaking, as it placed Hephaistion's back toward the door. For someone who was as paranoid as his general, Alexander thought, this was almost an aberration.

"I have guards by the door, Alexander, they can keep me safe. But they can't do my ledgers for me," Hephaistion had tried to explain, chiding him with laughter in his voice. He preferred sunlight to candlelight.

"Eumenes can," Alexander had teased then, "He's good at it."

Hephaistion's face had soured and Alexander had then braced himself for an oncoming rant--his general never gotten well with his secretary, it seemed, and his rants were always entertaining. It also helped Hephaistion vent, and afterward Alexander would get the chance to soothe his lover in many creative ways.

But that day, the rant never came. There had been a beginning of one, when Hephaistion drew in a long breath and started to open his mouth. But he quickly snapped his mouth shut again and exhaled noisily. Instead he had lifted his feet to rest over the box, hands wrapped around stomach, shins against the front of the table, and his forehead on his knees. He had looked like someone with a stomach cramp, but his muscles had been loose.

"Sometimes," he had said, almost too quiet for Alexander to hear. "Sometimes I wonder what I'm good for."

Alexander hadn't really understood the reason behind Hephaistion's melancholia, that only grew once they arrived in Babylon. Perhaps, now looking back at it, he hadn't even made enough effort to try and understand why. He remembered that day quite clearly. He remembered standing up from his seat across his general, then dropping a kiss on the small swell of bone and flesh at the back of Hephaistion's bowed neck, and giving the man a reassuring pat. He remembered saying "I know what to do to cheer you up" and Hephaistion shifting slightly to peer up to him. "An early feast, of course!" Alexander had exclaimed as though he had the answer to the universe. "Get you away from all this boring paperwork."

The King had swept out of the room, head already full of dinner plans. There had been a time, before Babylon, when he would just stay, accompanying his friend in quiet contemplation. There had been a time, before Babylon, when Hephaistion would call after his friend, and still his restless soul. That time, he had merely sighed and resumed his work.

*****

It must be high noon by now, Alexander mused to himself, and still he loathed to move from his place, slumped against Hephaistion's 'Arabia' box. But the noises from the corridor beyond was getting to his nerves. Soon, a knock came. He tried to reason that it could be a knock on other doors. But it was insistent and sounded very near. Reluctantly, he beckoned the intruder to come in.

A page stood in the doorway, harried and anxious. He babbled about some lunch thing with some satraps and didn't Alexander asked to be reminded of that?

There had been a time when he could just cast a glance, and Hephaistion would sigh and smile indulgently. There had been a time when Hephaistion would throw down his stylus and push his chair back with an "Oh all right, come on then" and they would tag-team an unsuspecting bureaucrat while playing footsie under the table. A long time ago, Hephaistion would entwine their fingers so fleetingly as they walked down to the council room, and no one would be any wiser of the many promises their touch telegraphed.

Sighing, Alexander pushed his hair back and climbed to his feet. He collected the parchment and wooden camel in his hand and looked around the space. The table, chair, and mountains of parchments, the ziggurat of boxes and trunks, the sun streaming from tall, airy windows--he decided that he would move his office here.

The page looked worried. Alexander had said his thoughts out loud, though the King didn't seem to notice. He followed his liege lord out of the room, and wondered whether he would ever experience an obsession like that. He hoped not, he decided, that couldn't be healthy.

**Author's Note:**

> It has been soo many chapters and not much plot development... It might never materialize.  
> Maybe this is going to be one of those day-in-life anthologies, not much more than a collection of anecdotes without punchlines. Maybe when it's done, it will be reassembled or reworked somehow.  
> In any case, I apologize in advance.


End file.
